Mobile terminals such as mobile telephone devices have become ubiquitous in our society. Unlike conventional landline telephony services, which typically operate in a home or office and are delivered via a wire or cable and enjoy a highly consistent transmission quality, mobile terminals are subject to be used over mobile communication networks under varying radio environments, which results in highly varying transmission quality and highly varying speech and data service performance for the end user. One of the challenges to designing and deploying mobile communication networks and services is the monitoring and collection of reliable and quality data for determining real-world network and terminal performance. Further, network operators need to be able to identify faults, failures and abnormalities that may occur during the operation of their network. They need to do this quickly so that they can quickly apply rectification strategies so the users are provided with as reliable a service as possible.
There are, however, a wide variety of factors affecting the perceived quality of service from the view point of a user. These factors cover all aspects of the design of mobile service provision, such as radio towers, connections from towers to backbone networks, hardware devices such as switches and routers, software services controlling authentication, routing, charging and all services running on the networks, interconnection with other network providers and/or operators and so on. While it is possible to monitor some of these aspects specifically, it is a challenge to monitor the ‘real’ end user experience continuously from many locations. As network operators expand their operations to many countries, potentially globally, it becomes almost impossible to rely on human testers and reports to monitor and report any issues that may arise.
As the mobile telephone networks have developed, various digital communication services have been introduced, including data communications, digital voice communications, video services and mobile TV to name a few. Along with the conventional voice services provided in the past, it is becoming a more complex task to test new deployments as well as monitor live services. A challenge to mobile telephone network operators and providers is how to monitor, evaluate and provide real-time reports of realistic real-world network and terminal performance of all of the services provided both within the operator's/provider's network and to and from other interconnected operators/providers and their associated networks.
Further problems with existing network testing systems include:                The requirement for differing and overlapping monitoring and testing strategies, particularly for Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs) and/or for telecoms networks having multiple operators;        The need for specialist proprietary terminal hardware;        An inability to support and/or test handsets having Multiple IMSI (MI) or Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) apps and/or basic (non-smart) handsets having non-smart SIM;        An inability or inefficiency in providing continuous global monitoring required for verification of end user services;        An inflexibility to provide ad-hoc tests and/or modification of scripted tests and/or subsequent test schedules required for targeted and strategic fault analysis;        Lack of flexibility to mix continuous monitoring with targeted and deployment cycle Design Verification Test (DVT);        In ability to update SIMs Over-The-Air (OTA) with new settings and features for feature testing and production updates; and        In ability to test Quality of Service of an ever increasing number of services including: Voice, SMS, VoIP, Data, Messaging, Streaming etc.        
Therefore, there is a need for a reliable system for monitoring, evaluating and providing real-time reports and realistic real-world network and terminal performance for one or more services provided both within an operator's network and to and from other interconnected operator's networks, particularly a system which supports ‘real’ SIMs and SIM applications.